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Samsung Galaxy S4 Review - Rubbish

Thu, 07/04/2013 - 15:43

I've had my Samsung Galaxy S4 for a few weeks now, and after all the excitement of getting what was supposed to be a game-changer phone I wanted to share some of my thoughts for anyone else looking to get one.

In a nutshell, it's a lot of useless high-tech features in a terrible, terrible user experience. I'm very disappointed, and somewhat shocked with how bad it is to use.

First off, you can't hold it.

This is absolutely my biggest gripe. The design looks "slick", but there is almost no place on the front of the phone that is not a button, or screen. That means you can't wrap your fingers around it at all. Think about it, you're trying to type something out or make a call, but even just getting a good grip on the phone means your fingers are constantly hitting the back button, or settings button, or some other area of the touch screen you didn't mean to hit. You can ONLY grip the phone by the back, and the fraction of an inch of side it has. I can't even begin to express how frustrating it is to constantly hit things you don't mean to, simply because you need to grip the device. And if you can somehow get a hold of it without touching any of the screen or buttons on the front, the side buttons are exactly where your fingers are. I mean, it's as if the developer said "well if they are going to hold it, let's at least make sure every finger is on some very sensitive input device." You can’t get around it. Just pick the phone up and you'll press the volume, or power button. It's terrible. Fail

Second, this phone is packed with amazingly useless technology.

For example, they made a feature which allows a user to input commands by just waving your hand over the screen. The thing is, you need to get so close to the screen in order to use this feature that it's almost a pain NOT to touch the screen. You end up waving multiple times until your figure out the correct distance. Why would anyone think this feature is handy? It's one of those "hey, I think we can do this" features and definitely not a "hey, I think we SHOULD do this" feature. It’s useless, unreliable, and difficult to use correctly. Fail.

Another ridicules feature is the "look away and the video will pause" feature. Are you kidding? Basically if you hold your arm out straight to watch a video (which of course you can't because your fingers will hit the back button), you can look away or turn your head and it will pause. Am I the only one that thinks this is the dumbest feature ever? Why the hell would I want to keep my arm outstretched, with paused video on my phone, so I can turn my head and chat with someone? The feature is unreliable, and more work than just pausing the video. Again, this is a "I think we can" feature, and not a "I think we SHOULD" feature. Fail.

Third, keyboard accuracy.

Assuming I manage to somehow hold it without pressing the screen or a button, or if I place it on my desk, I can't hit 85% of the keys I'm trying to. No matter how hard I focus on finger placement, I'm constantly going back to fix errors in words. What should be a quick "hey, I'm running late" text becomes a long drawn out process of changing each word because of bad input. Maybe I just have clunky fingers, but after playing guitar for 20+ years I'd like to think that’s not the case.

Fourth, networking issues... and Samsung knows about them!?

The wi-fi issues speak for themselves. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just google "samsung galaxy s4 networking issues." Seems Samsung knows about these problems, but still markets the "network capabilities" of the phone. Isn't that like a car manufacturer marketing an "amazing car" even though they know in some conditions the brakes don't work? Fail.

My $0.02 - Save your money, or wait for the iPhone 6

I'm not impressed at all. It's big, hard to use, and full of useless features. I acknowledge that the S4 has incredible hardware. It's fast and powerful. If I could hold it in a way that allows me to actually interact with it, maybe I could use that hardware.

I've had mine 16 months and I totally agree with you comments. I often don like a new phone but they grow on me. The galaxy s 4 will never grow on me.just got a replacement u one from Orange cos my screen wen, and this one is awful. Screen freezes can't disconnect a call unless I remove the battery . Cuts out during a call. Network and data connection virtually none existent .battery life is very poor

I absolutely agree with all your comments and even more. The e-mail client is slow and randomly sorts your e-mail. The search function is unusable. The 'Play Store' fails to download apps due to "Network Issues". The signal strength is poor, I have still held onot my iPhone 4, it obtains 3G where the Samsung S4 barely obtains GPRS. The only thinkg going for it is the screen, hopefully Apple will get the screen size right and it will be the end for this pile of rubbish. If you are thinking of getting one, don't. If you are adamant you want one, bear in mind what has been said here and after a few weeks you will know.

Having switched to the S4, instead of going for my 4th variant of iPhone, I have to say that it was my "Fail of the Year". The networking issue is the biggest problem, followed by the email client, followed by all the useless that seems to work at random. Cant wait for the iPhone 5S to arrive so that I can drop this piece of garbage.

The S4 is not a Smartphone it is a dump phone. You can barely make phone calls, the battery goes flat within 1 hour, you can't get internet and wifi. The screen resolution is terrible. It is not water proof or microwave proof when you tried to dry it out in the oven. It is also not even hammer proof. These phones and all other Android and Windows phones are rubbish! The best phone in my opinion is IPhone. All Samsung products are rubbish and should be banned as they are dangerous to use. Apple should be the only Smartphone on the market. Stop all these imposters now! Buy Apple, forget the rest!

Totally! one year ago I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Ace and a Samsung laptop. Together they have given me a solid year of frustration. the Galaxy Ace constantly resets various settings for no good reason and periodically freezes altogether . the Laptop is nightmare . it also involuntarily changes settings and every so often takes twenty minutes to boot up. I am constantly spending money having it checked but as the problems are intermittent no-one can diagnose them. I work in an office full of people with apples and Lenovo's , both of which appear to be straightforward and reliable. If you are a kid who wants a lot of gimmicky technology get a Samsung but if you want a reliable, logical. uncluttered user friendly mobile 'phone or laptop get one of the cheaper and better chinese brands and save yourself the frustration and the money.

Oh yes , the reception! I am in the same office building, same room with colleagues using the same mobile 'phone provider and they have reception and I do not. And they do not all have expensive iPhones . My colleague who is at the next desk has a much cheaper Lenovo which is much more user friendly and totally outperforms my Samsung Galaxy Ace. As soon as get over the pain of paying far too much for this assemblage of gimmicky technology designed by marketers I am buying one.

It's true this phone is a crap dela crap it is full with bugs a lot of service issues and the camera is the most slowly thing I have ever seen its take like 5 to 10 sec to load .... don't buy it its a bad device !!

they make soo many versions of one phone...thats confusing...total crap never going to buy a "SAME SUNG" phone (samsung) again..never..moved to Apple even though expensive..would rather pay more for quality than crap. even amaze me how they have flooded Africa with their crap phones...poor quality..they also have lots of galaxies WHAT...galazy this galazy that.. bla bla bla all poor quality ..total waste of money.

Absolutely nightmare. I don't think I have made one call that hasn't cut off by itself. Never had any issues with the S2 but its time to let Samsung go. Let it go ... Its I-phones from now on - I like the ability of making calls with a phone.

I own an S4 and I fully agree. Its hard to hold the phone with one hand, also if you do hold it with one hand it seems like the interface was designed for left-handed people. Network issues persist but have been bettered out with 4.4.2. Keyboard is awful and the phone is full of S-bloat and carrier crap. I won't be buying another Samsung device.

Cant get over how useles this fone is. Keeps doing things i dont want (funny -just like windows) amd the connectivity amd email problems are unsurmountable woth so many useless apps trying to fill the gap. My mates bought iphone amd im going to throw this 1 month old piece of s**t in the bin

This a terrible, terrible phone, the email client is shocking - just do a search on how many users are having emails just dissapearing! Worst of all, the bloatware, shocking, just shocking. I don't expect to have to root a £400+ phone to get this battery/data hogging rubbish off. I was a big Samsung fan, now I have to look at other makes, anything other than Samsung.

Im absolutely dissapointed with that shit of slow, buggy, laggy android on that Samsung half product. Samsung, give me back my money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are fucking kidding, are you ?!!!!!!!! I will record video how your shitphone react and how fast it is. I want my money back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had the HTC One previous to this pathetic excuse of a "smartphone" which I loved apart from the fact the screen and battery failed on it. I asked my service provider for a replacement but they couldn't offer me another HTC One. Instead they offered me the S4, I'd never owned a Samsung device before this so I thought why not. Well all I can say is, it's completely and utterly garbage, my HTC was 10x the phone even when it was busy being broken. The S4 in terms of mobile data speed and the general pace of the phone is pathetic. I've learnt a hard lesson but one that will make me avoid Samsung products in the future.

I can no longer read emails on my samsung l get the outgoing email back with 2 words of the reply and the rest hidden - impossible to type on - internet will not load all the page. It has also decided to put my personal emails in spam and my junk mails in priority. Forever saying no connection when there is deffo a connection wtf is going on

In short the Samsung Galaxy S4 is absolutely crap. I will never buy a Samsung phone again. The operating system is completely unstable. My contacts come and go frequently, but especially when I need to go on an urgent call. The phone reboots sporadically. Incoming calls sometimes cannot be answered at all. Accounts disappear and the list goes on.....

This is no joke: the galaxy tablet I (unfortunately must) use has a send Email success chance of 0%. It crashes periodically and has a battery life of less than an hour. Not all the vulgar swear words and insults in the world can describe how awful Samsung tech is. It's the kind of shit attrocity that I'd expect from north Korea.

The thing about retarded Samsung devices is how their stupid devices just can't stop creaking when you try using them. My 1 1/2 year old Galaxy note 8.0 creaks like shit whenever I try typing stuff on Google. I switched to an iPad mini with Retina and couldn't be happier. It only cost A$332.10 with the kind Apple employees letting me have 10% discount when I realized I was $20 short... The shopping malls lack a Samsung store like >99.99% of the time and the staff at stores such as JB-HI FI are morons. I couldn't get a refund for the device in 2 days after purchase. Samsung sucks! Apple rules and deserves to rule.

I have had a galaxy s4 for 2 years nearly and I have hated every second of every day of its miserable existence in my life. I am counting the seconds till I can smash it to pieces and gleefully watch as I obliterate it, for all the pain and suffering it has brought into my world.
The texting is beyond painful..changing every single word entered because you cannot possibly type on the minute keys. Then the ridiculous memory remembers its own mistakes but does not remember the correct words so your texts become a diatribe of nonsensical gibberish. You tear your hair in frustration crying as you spell tge instead of the for the 1000 time and weep knowing an iphone would simply change it for you.
All the cool features that made you buy this phone are long since turned off as you sit with it permenantly teathered to a socket lest it sing the song of its people before dying totally within 50 minutes of use.
All in all a useless piece of crap..I wish I had never had the misfortune of laying my eyes on.

Yes I hate my phone. Not one thing works. It shows me an email from a moth ago and deleted all my pics while wasting three hours trying to download.
One of these days I'll smash it into so many little pieces.

Overnight all the colours on this bloody shit of a phone - gal 4 have changed. You CANT look at your pics in the gallery because they seem to be transparent. I cannot get my apps to be the normal colour. This is driving me nuts.

I bought an S4 after I lost my S5 (which was a replacement for a lost iPhone) and I think it is, as you so elegantly put it - rubbish.
After the most recent upgrade to Lollipop, the Japanese kanji conversion stopped working, and no one on the world wide web seem to know how to bloody fix it.
My other major dislike is that the phone corrupts the files on the externals SD card. What is the use of having a slot for expanded memory when the phone can't handle it. After my first batch of photos were gone, I decided to only use the SD for music that I can re-upload to the phone. This is apparently also a known problem but with no solution.
Add to the above a buggy OS, terrible typing and crashing apps.
The only edge Samsung has over iPhone is that it is easier to select text to copy. Actually, scrap that, you can not partially select text from message apps like WhatsApp or FB Messenger, the only option is to copy the full text of the message, which is annoying when you want to copy only an address, http:// or a phone number.
Samsung is crap. Never again.

Glad I found this page to vent my frustration on this crappy s4.
Full of useless apps that can't be deleted while consistently telling me of more app updates and adding more shi,te that consumes what battery I have.. (found a battery with double power to replace samsungs)
Signal strength is different between my wife and I even in the same room with same s4 phones. I thought it was network provider at first.
Still got a year on contract left but can't wait to get back to a htc..1st samsung now also my last.
P.s even the Samsung micro sd card has become unrecognised and all that data lost.

I have the Samsung for work and iPhone 5S for my personal device... Positively hate the Samsung... Even tho
I can basically use it as I please I find it to be a bloated piece of clunky crap... I use nothing on it and have nothing but network issues and yes typing any text is an utter pain- hate it... iPhone has always been my choice and it is simple yet sleek, fast, user friendly, navigational to the point that my 3 year old can use it but intrinsic enough to be the best for a reason...Samsung sucks-enough said .

My S4 started shutting off randomly, for no apparent reason or pattern. After doing all I couldI bring it back to Fido. Well, no loaner phone available - save a 1998 model nokia - which I did;t take.
Two weeks later the phone comes back, supposedly "fixed".. Exact same problem!!! F*#K Sakes!!!!! My marriage and my emotional well-being has taken a toll over this nightmare. Still no replacement phone, nor even a decent 21st century loaner. Never again will I give 1 fucking cent to this incompetent, crooked company
David Bursey

the phone is a useless piece of crap it will turn off the battery van be at 100% then it will reset then the battery will be at 1% it consistently say the sim card is removed and i will never touch it. several times a day. in the past month my phone shut it self off and now it wont turn on it just says galaxy s4 then it will turn off . do not buy this phone

Samsung is trading on its reputation of other products while selling millions of shit phones and now tv with hub if you see hub run a mile its shit and looks like a bannana and is impossible to use comfortabley

Just learn to use your android. I figure you are just a bunch of Apple users who still can't figure out how to use PCs and any other device that requires some thinking and technical knowledge. Of course waving hands to control your phone and video pausing when you turn away are very useful features. Think about driving a car, or watching a video while the phone is on a stand or a rack in a car, but then needing to walk or drive. Typical Apple user's perspective, arrogant and pretentious. Apple devices fail and malfunction as well, and have seemingly useless features. At least non-Apple devices are customizable.

The features might be useful to some if any of them worked but the phone is a piece of junk. And it doesn't have anything to do with being an Apple lover or having no technical knowledge which is really an idiotic statement. Not only is it completely antiuser friendly but the actual phone itself is junk.

I agree with everything you said and then some. It's the most antiuser friendly phone i've ever owned. It's an unreliable hunk of junk and I will not have another android. I'm going back to the iPhone the first opportunity I get.